NTOK – Blockchain online education platform

Tutor Ninja Token («NTOK») is a global decentralized ecosystem for continuing education aimed at allowing tutors and students to interact via an online platform based on a blockchain.

The education market is rapidly moving from offline to online. Tutoring, one of the biggest segments of the education market, is forecasted to reach US$227 billion by 2022. Currently, online tutoring accounts for only 3–5% of the tutoring market, but is expected to grow fast and become mainstream in the fields of language study, preschool preparation, supplementary instruction for K-12 students, continuing professional education.

Distance learning with a tutor is expected very soon become a regular teaching and learning method across a wide range of subjects and topics. School and university students, adults, and parents will choose distance learning with a tutor as a way of gaining new knowledge or valuable cultural experiences, preparing for exams, improving professional skills, or just learning for fun. Over the next few years more than 70% of the tutoring market is expected to go online, creating a dynamic market whose value may exceed $150 billion in size.

The NTOK platform is aimed at solving all these problems by developing an online tutoring ecosystem based on blockchain technology. NTOK’s key participants are tutors and students. Other participants include educational content and device providers who are interested in attracting NTOK audience’s attention to their products.

The main focus of the NTOK platform is on foreign languages, other popular subjects and topics, preschool education, supplementary instruction for K-12 students, as well as coding and blockchain courses. NTOK makes it possible for tutors specializing in various subjects to join the platform. After completing a series of online lessons, the student can start working with a different tutor on the same subject, or he/she can study with several tutors at the same time.

The open nature of the platform means that the ecosystem will be able to expand rapidly. In NTOK, every student can find a tutor and every tutor can find a student. Unlike other “middleman” models for bringing students and tutors together, NTOK takes a minimal commission for direct contact: this makes it possible to generate interest in the service by keeping it affordable, to reduce the price of the service, and to attract a greater number of students into the ecosystem.

The central part of the platform is the NTOK crypto-token which is used for various purposes, mainly for paying for lessons by students and earning income by teachers and content providers.

[infobox style=”alert-success”]NTOK Solution[/infobox]

We are developing a decentralized peer-to-peer platform to create a global ecosystem for continuing education, where the key participants (tutors and students) can find each other. The NTOK platform is aimed at allowing NTOK tokenholders, both tutors and students, to interact directly. One of our goals is to remove the middlemen such as commercial schools and study centers and to create economic benefits for the key participants in the ecosystem The central part of the NTOK platform is the NTOK crypto-token which is used for various purposes, including paying for lessons by students and earning income by teachers and content providers.

Transactions in the NTOK platform will be paid for using the NTOK token. We understand that some participants may not find buying and selling crypto-tokens entirely intuitive at first. To solve this problem, we are planning a seamless integration with the exchanges where NTOK tokens may be listed. As a result of this integration, we will be able to allow participants that are not comfortable with crypto tokens to pay for transactions within the ecosystem using traditional fiat currencies. Fiat currency payments will be converted into tokens and will be credited to the payee’s account in token form. At the same time, since we aim to promote and popularize the blockchain technology, we will add a fee for transactions that are made using fiat currencies to create economic incentive for switching to crypto tokens.

We will also distribute short educational videos to platform members explaining how to conduct transactions directly on a blockchain. This will both allow us to scale the platform faster, and to also stimulate the further development and popularization of the blockchain technology. The key participants in the ecosystem are students and tutors. The main way in which they will interact is through the NTOK platform lessons and rating/review system. Students directly pay tutors for the lessons using NTOK tokens. Several students may join together to have group lessons with one or several tutors. Several tutors may also form groups to teach courses in one or several subjects for a single student or for a group.

In addition to individual tutors, other organizations focusing on the provision of online education (such as online commercial schools, study centers as well as our inhouse developed education providers) will also be able to participate in our ecosystem. Thus, on the one hand, they will be able to obtain access to a very modern infrastructure for conducting lessons, accessing learning content, and purchasing educational devices from leading suppliers. On the other hand, they will have to compete with individual tutors who will also enjoy the same benefits within the NTOK platform. This is likely to force inefficient and uncompetitive commercial schools and study centers to close. Survival will be among those that manage to optimize their administration to provide students with courses at a competitive price.

We have already created an Alpha version of the NTOK platform. Currently we are testing it as an online English language school at tutor-ninja.com, which will become a pilot project for a new decentralized (peer-to-peer) model for interacting with centralized online schools. Through the lessons that are already being conducted on the tutor-ninja.com platform we communicate regularly with both students and teachers, and obtain rapid feedback from them about how our peer-to-peer platform should evolve and which functions should be developed.

We have a number of preliminary arrangements with partners in different countries (in particular China). It is our intention for these partners to become our franchisees who will be using our platform while building their own operational business. Franchisees will be a part of the NTOK ecosystem and will accept NTOK tokens as payment. It is expected that this solution will help with both faster scaling and NTOK tokens turnover growth.

While building the peer-to-peer ecosystem with a wide range of subjects, not limited to only languages and school subjects, we believe that an online school, which is currently working as an Alpha version of the peerto-peer platform, has the potential to be demanded by many students. We also believe that this business model has all the chances to scale on a great number of local markets, where premium service provided by schools will be of interest.

[infobox style=”alert-success”]ICO details[/infobox]

The pre-sale is to take place between December 5th, 2017 and March 1th, 2018. During such pre-sale, NTOK tokens will be sold subject to certain minimum purchase of the NTOK tokens valued at 1 NTOK = $1.00.

Additional bonuses might be provided during pre-sale. The public sale period of the ICO is to take place between March 1th, 2018 and March 31th, 2018. The ICO period could be further extended, if required. Tokens are expected to be distributed within 2 weeks after the ICO ends or earlier.

NTOK tokens will be issued at an initial price of $ 1.00 each during the first week of the public sale period of the ICO. During such public sale period, the price for the NTOK tokens will increase every week as set out in the table below:

Total proceeds from the initial sale of NTOK tokens will be capped at $15 million, not counting NTOK tokens allocated to a reserve, the team, and advisors. Additional tokens worth of 192 BTC and converted into USD will be issued to the ICObox as consideration for the provision of ICO advisory services and the bookbuilding platform. ICObox tokens BTC/USD exchange rate capped at $5,650 per 1 BTC in order to protect NTOK token holders from a potential significant appreciation of BTC during the ICO.

NTOK tokens, other than those issued to the ICObox, will be distributed as follows: 70% to the public, 7% to the NTOK platform reserve, 3% towards bounty, 20% to the team & advisors. In case bounty tokens are not fully utilized, those remaining could be distributed amongst the team & advisors or put in reserve. The final number of tokens distributed per category of recipient, other than tokens reserved for the ICOBox team, will depend on the demand generated during the ICO. The token Standard used will be ERC 20.